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Definition of nitpicking in English:

nitpicking

adjective

Looking for small or unimportant errors or faults, especially in order to criticize unnecessarily.

‘a nitpicking legalistic exercise’

‘I might be guilty of nit-picking there, but read the final paragraph, which comes close to a rational conclusion, then veers wildly.’

‘It is time to show genuine, overarching political support for what Washington is trying to achieve in Iraq and the broader Middle East, without petty, nit-picking reservations.’

‘I hate that sort of nit-picking negativity about the smallest of events.’

‘This kind of nit-picking, especially from Repubicans, is unhelpful.’

‘This designation may seem like nit-picking but it nevertheless gives a school the right to use the name ‘Waldorf’ or ‘Rudolf Steiner,’ both of which are protected under copyright law.’

‘It may therefore seem like philosophical nit-picking if I criticise some of his arguments for getting to those conclusions.’

‘People are that much harsher with new writers, as though they cannot tell the difference between constructive criticism and plain old nit-picking.’

‘A first-year student at Williams may well become frustrated with such fastidious nit-picking.’

‘The message is: it's a free country, and an Englishman's home is his castle - just as long as you don't happen to live under the ridiculous and nit-picking rules of a Residents' Association.’

‘Lest this be seen as pure nit-picking, the broader point is that Australia continues to have a much more regulated and legalistic system of Industrial Relations than many comparable jurisdictions.’

‘Occasionally, however, planners become so bound up in their own highly regulated world that they indulge in the sort of bureaucratic nit-picking that demeans their professional name.’

‘Compromise, rather than dogmatic statements and dreary nit-picking over the constitution, can be the only way to maintain this progress.’

‘They are also completely missing the point with their penny-pinching and nit-picking and succeed only in making themselves appear ridiculous.’

‘I can't do that, because I am Australian and there is nothing the Greeks hate more at the moment than hearing Olympic nit-picking from Down Under, where they detect a conspiracy to undermine their efforts at every turn.’

‘So first, let me emphasise that I really am, despite any subsequent assertions, counter-claims and nit-picking objections, recommending this book: it is enormous fun, and its authors' hearts are in the right places.’

‘But with regard to Winslow's receiving ability, any weakness cited is an exercise in nit-picking.’

‘If, occasionally, his run-on sentences tax your patience and his scrupulous accuracy verges on pedantic, nit-picking neurosis, you never feel like giving up on him - he's too exhilarating.’

‘Seriously, no less than seven days of unpacking, rearranging, bathroom and kitchen-scrubbing, discarding, laundering, and nit-picking went into earning that approval.’

‘Day after day we're treated to an over-long British news sequence covering the ‘events’ of the preceding twenty-four hours on the campaign trail, and nit-picking over the meaning of the latest polls.’